Vic Shealy returns for his fourth season with UNLV and will oversee the team's safeties while also serving as the assistant head coach.

Shealy is no stranger to the Mountain West Conference, as he spent six seasons as the defensive secondary coach for league-rival Air Force.

"I have known Vic Shealy for many years and he has established himself as a coach with great leadership abilities," UNLV head coach Mike Sanford said. "He is an outstanding person that I have a very strong belief in as a coach."

Shealy moved to the Academy from Azusa Pacific, where he was head coach for four seasons and compiled a 27-14-1 record. In 1998, he led the Cougars to their first-ever NAIA national championship and was named NAIA National Coach of the Year and won the American Football Quarterly Schutt National Coach of the Year Award.

After a college playing career at Liberty and then Richmond, where his father was head coach, Shealy entered the coaching ranks as an undergraduate assistant on the Spider staff before two years as a GA at Baylor under Grant Teaff. He then began the first of two stints at Mars Hill (N.C.) College in 1986. In 1987, he became the offensive coordinator at Austin Peay State. He left coaching in 1990, but returned to Mars Hill in 1992 as the offensive coordinator. In 1993, he returned to Austin Peay as the defensive secondary coach and became the defensive coordinator the following year. He left Austin Peay to begin his stint at Azusa Pacific in 1995.

Born in Nashville, Tenn., Shealy was raised in South Carolina and graduated from Richmond in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in physical education and received a master's degree in education from Baylor in 1986. He and his wife, Holly, are the parents of three sons, Dal (21), who is a WR at Air Force, Jake (18) and Will (10) and one daughter, Kate (12).